Air is better than water

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[–] 16 points 2 years ago* (15 children)

Technically, no, air is a much worse thermal conductor, and most liquids are significantly better. It's a pretty efficient thermal INSULATOR, however.

The practical applications, however, make the movement of air OUT of your system an efficient cooling method.

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  • [–] 50 points 2 years ago (12 children)

    Not trying to be contrarian or a smart-ass, but aren't water cooled systems kinda just air cooled systems with the radiator moved elsewhere?

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  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Yes. The advantage is that you can make the surface area of the air cooling part much, much larger. I had a water cooled system that could do web browsing and other basic tasks with zero fan speed (though it was better to leave it on very low speed to avoid hunting behavior).

    Also, there's some benefits to thermal mass. Short term spikes can be absorbed by the water without increasing fan speed.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I had a water cooled system that could do web browsing and other basic tasks with zero fan speed

    Isn't that the default for (air cooled) notebooks?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I once built a home theatre PC that was completely passively cooled. The case was basically the entire heat sink. It got the heat from the CPU through heatpipes. Unfortunately the shitty motherboard died due to unreleased reasons and since then I didn't have the time or money to revive it.

    The cases aren't even built anymore. No idea why, it was really cool.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Every liquid cooling system is pretty much that. Eventually you need to give it to the outside and the outside is usually air. Heck even river cooling for Power plants ends up "air cooling" through the rivers surface.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    All of that air cooling is just radiation cooling in the end

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